30 April 2009 3:06 PM

On being a gun nut

Well, I said I would be misrepresented when I voiced doubts about 'gun control', and I duly was, by a contributor who seems keen to legalise a drug that destroys the brains of the young, but regards it as unthinkable to allow individuals to own guns. He says I am a 'gun nut'. Does that make him a 'dope nut'? Perhaps, though I doubt he will see it that way. Well, I don't see it his way either. Here's why.

Presumably he imagines that my house is crammed with firearms and ammunition, and that I salivate over gun porn in my bullet-proof bunker. I'm sorry to disappoint him but I neither own any guns nor wish to do so. I find proper firearms as alarming as I find powerful motorcycles. In both cases you need to know what you're doing before you use them. In both cases they give you more power than you might want to possess. In both cases, they are too easily capable of inflicting pain and injury. Having nearly killed myself (and someone else) on a motorbike when I was 17, I would be reluctant to ride one again. I can, without any effort at all, recall in vivid detail the screaming of metal on Tarmac as my machine tipped over, sparks flying, and the first sight of my very badly broken ankle after I had hopped to the roadside. I can also remember that, after a dreamlike interlude when I was unaware of how badly I was hurt, it was very painful but (fortunately) have no actual memory of the pain itself, which was just short of the level needed to pass out. I hope this helps to explain why I am also not anxious to keep a firearm.

I don't even like being near motorbikes any more. I am more aware than most people of what severe physical injury looks and feels like. And I suspect I should be just as cautious with a loaded gun of any kind. Handling unloaded ones, as I did for some posed pictures in Moscow, Idaho last October, is of course another matter.

The only firearms I ever possessed were a couple of childhood airguns, once common but now - I suspect - more or less banned. The righteous frenzy against toy guns (including those which are unmistakably and obviously toys) is now so great that toyshops often don't stock them any more. All I desire is my lawful freedom, as guaranteed by the 1689 Bill of Rights and lawlessly whittled away by the civil service and dim politicians, to own a gun if I choose to do so. I suppose it's possible that, as our anarchy deepens, I might reluctantly want to take advantage of this. But that's the point. The choice should be mine, not that of some boot-faced politically-correct police officer anxious to maintain his monopoly of force - and anxious to ensure that his idea of the law should be the only one available.

As I argue in my book 'A Brief History of Crime', it's the great gulf between police and public over how the law should be enforced that lies behind two important features of modern Britain. The frequent arrests of people for defending themselves or their property are not accidents or quirks. They are the consequence of the Criminal Justice system's abandonment of old-fashioned ideas of punishment; also of that system's social democratic belief that crime has 'social' causes and the ownership of property isn't absolute. Most law-abiding people don't really accept this. They think criminals do bad things because they lack conscience or restraint, not because they were abused as children or their dole payments are too small. And they don't see why they have to barricade their houses or hide their worldly goods from view on the assumption that some unrestrained low-life is otherwise bound to steal them. So they regard it as legitimate to hurt and punish those who rob them or otherwise attack them. If they were allowed to enforce the law as they see it, they would quickly show the police and courts up as useless and mistaken. One of the most important jobs of the police is to stop us looking after ourselves, in case we do a better job than PC Plod.

Guns simply take this to a higher level. Since we foolishly abolished the formal death penalty, imposed after a careful trial, we have transferred the power of capital punishment to an increasingly armed police force (though no legislation has ever actually been passed to arm them, and the pretence is still maintained that they are unarmed). That police force is now the arm of the liberal state - rather than enforcers of conservative law (which is why it is nowadays called a 'service') - and so has a much wider licence to use (liberal) violence than ordinary conservative citizens. Contrast the police force's zealous efforts to stamp out private gun ownership with its own rather poor efforts at responsible gun use, as a result of which quite a few people (one stark naked in a well-lit room) have been shot by mistake or as a result of over-reaction by armed officers. As it happens, I find these mistakes and over-reactions quite easy to pardon. Which of us, in such situations, could be sure he would do the right thing? I've never joined in the frenzy of criticism over the de Menezes case, for instance. It is terribly easy to see how such an error could have been made under the circumstances. But if we didn't have an armed police force, and left executions to the hangman, then these things would be a lot less likely.

But what concerns me is that members of the public in the same situation are judged so much more harshly if they make such mistakes. And, perhaps more important, how police shootings are widely accepted, though they are summary, often erroneous and inadequately investigated. Whereas a society which finds this summary execution acceptable gets into a pseudo-moral lather about the idea of lawful execution after due process, jury trial, the possibility of appeal and reprieve.

This brings me back to the USA. Americans are not so infantilised as we are. For many reasons, mainly the fact that it is still possible to live genuinely rural lives in large parts of the country, Americans are less likely to rely on others to protect them or their homes from danger.

This used to be true of us too (again I must urge those who are interested to read the relevant chapter in 'Brief History'). It's evident from a lot of English fiction, written not for propaganda but by people who simply recorded life as they understood it, that until quite recently we had a more American view of things. In fact until 1920 English Gun Law made Texas look effeminate. Read, as nobody now does, Captain Marryat's 'Children of the New Forest' set in the days of Cromwell, and observe the wholly different attitudes towards self-defence against crime that are casually described there.

Read, as fewer and fewer people now do, alas, the 'Sherlock Holmes' stories, and see how often Holmes and Dr Watson venture out carrying firearms. This was perfectly legal, and unsurprising, in the late Victorian and Edwardian era in which the stories are set. And pre-1914 attempts to control guns were resisted by MPs much as the US Congress resists them now.

My suspicion is that the guts were knocked out of us British by the First World War, in which the best people of all classes died by their thousands in the great volunteer armies which marched off to Loos, Passchendaele and the Somme. Those who survived lacked something of the spirit that a free country needs, and we never fully recovered, just as Russia has yet to recover from the fourfold blow of the First World War, Civil War, Great Purge and Second World War, each of which destroyed the best and brightest of their generations. The USA - a society, for the most part, of volunteers and pioneers, has never had a comparable experience. Let us hope it never does.

May I endorse the kind things said about Canada by some correspondents? British people are often given to making lofty and scornful remarks about various countries which they decry as 'boring' - Canada, Belgium and Switzerland usually being the chief victims. Canada is anything but boring. On the contrary it is a fascinating and intensely civilised society, made all the more so by the survival of a French-speaking province (and I admit to having been too diffident about the monarchism of the Quebecois, who were sensibly allowed by Protestant Hanoverian Britain to maintain their Roman Catholic faith without restriction - though I was sorry, on my last visit to Quebec City, to find the handsome Anglican Cathedral there closed and locked. Still, I was pleased to see that - like the Anglican church in Sark - it offered services in French as well as English. How I wish the 1662 Prayer Book could be translated, and I mean properly translated, with all the poetry, into every major language of the world).

Belgophobes also need to travel a bit more. Among the many delights of that country are a comprehensive railway system that puts ours to shame, several treasure houses of some of the best paintings in the world and a rather better record in resisting German invasion than they are generally given credit for. As for Switzerland, the determination of its people to remain free is very far from boring, and continues to this day.

One contributor asks why I don't go to live in the USA, since I like it so much. Why should I? This is my country, where my ancestors are buried and where I hope and intend to be buried myself, where I grew up, whose landscape, climate, music, poetry and architecture are in my bones, whose battle-honours are my battle-honours and whose history is my history. Nowhere else is like it. It is precisely because I know and like so many other countries that I know and love my own best of all. Given the way things are going, I don't completely rule out the possibility of becoming an exile, but that will not be because I want to be. It never is.

Oh, and by the way, those who object to being called 'dimwitted' by me have a simple remedy. Don't say dimwitted things, and especially spare me any repetitions of the 'what about alcohol and tobacco, then, eh?' attempted defence of cannabis. If I urged the unrestricted sale of alcohol and tobacco, they might just have a small point. Since I support legal restrictions on both (both for reasons repeatedly given on this site - I do not believe that legally banning their possession would work, whereas it would with cannabis), they have no point at all. This argument annoys me especially because it is so dishonest, given that those who use it have no actual interest in curbing the use of any poison, merely in preventing serious action against the poison they favour. It also annoys me because its proponents did not even think of it themselves, but bought it retail, ready made in easy-to-swallow capsules.

I suspect (because it is so common) that this non-argument is being widely taught it in school in 'PSHE' indoctrination sessions, and that those who advance it have never thought about it all, because it suited their own interests to swallow it whole. I think it is good for such people to realise that others regard them as dimwitted - for parroting weak and wicked arguments foisted on them by irresponsible teachers. They and these teachers ought to be forced to do weekend shifts in the cannabis wards in our mental hospitals. Meanwhile, the jibe that they are 'dimwitted', a mild one under the circumstances, might make them think about the subject, perhaps for the first time in their sheltered lives.

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I agree with the author totally on gun control but I am an American and you all know that we are just nuts. The main problem we have here with guns is the inner city punks. If you are in the ghetto you are likely surrounded by criminals with guns. I am glad that I am allowed to carry one legally though because I sometimes have to work in these areas at night and don't feel safe. If we made guns illegal here law abiding people like me wouldn't be allowed to protect themselves but the thugs would still carry guns because they don't care about the law and are carrying illegally in the first place. I live in Ohio and here if someone comes into your home illegally you can shoot them on the spot with basically no questions asked. It's easy really. Want to live? Don't intrude in someone's home! That's the way it should be! Good luck over there. I have to disagree on cannabis though. Is there REALLY a cannabis ward at the hospital? I doubt that! Anyway, cheers!

Not very au fait with this particular law. Was it just about firearms or did it include cannons and mortars for those with fortified homes? Did it include swords and daggers for those on the move? Did it permit lesser mortals to protect their homes with sharpened staves and cudgels?
Are we just discussing arms that protect our homes? Can I not carry a gun to protect my wallet or my wife when travelling? If I can't afford a handgun, can I carry a kukri or walk down the street with a machette at the ready?
And if my next door neighbour is a drunken, tattooed wife-beater, am I happy that he's got a rifle in the house?

As usual, U.S. Gun crime and shooting statistics are HORRIBLY MISUNDERSTOOD. Gun availability and possession in the U.S. is not consistent. States Like New Hampshire and Vermont, gun possession by the law abiding is easy and common. Crime is at it lowest in these states. Places Like Chicago, NYC, D.C. and LA where private ownership of firearms is heavily restricted, or outright banned have violent crime and homicide rates through the roof. So gun control proponents meld the high percentage of legal gun owners in the low crime areas, and the high crime numbers from the areas where citizens are virtually unarmed, and hope no one notices. Incidentally, the FBI also found that 80% of crime in the U.S. is directly related to gangs and drug dealers, but since these are the core constituency of President Obama, They are going after rural hunters and sport shooters to help reduce drug cartel violence in Mexico.

Mike Dubost is correct to remind you of the American Civil War. Around 600,000 died as I understand it - the cream of the crop - in yet another contrived civil war between white peoples. As to gun ownership it is interesting that one of the many lies told about Hitler - Jesse Owens famously driving the Fuhrer to apoplexy is still used on the BBC history website, though it never happened - that his first action upon taking office was to prohibit gun ownership. He didn't. He legislated to endorse and even encourage it. People in this country haven't suffered enough. They just don't appreciate that without the means to defend themselves the state will do with them as they choose. People can't think. They complain bitterly about immigration yet cheer wildly at the success of a bunch of mercenaries called Gurkhas in 'their' outrageous campaign to displace our own folk from the queue for places in retirement homes (Joanna Lumley is rich enough to avoid the consequences of her actions. Poor whites will have that barrier to surmount). Such is the dysgenic result of two devastating world wars perhaps.

Gun crime when it happens anywhere is appalling but it comes in one simple answer it is not the gun but the person and that type of mind set will get hold of a gun no matter how long it takes.In the U.S.A where the killings are multiple at a time it is bad but for the population at large if they couldn't protect their homes it would rise on an individual basis if criminals knew they were not in danger of getting their head blown off in self defence.Strict control on guns there will never work if anything as now it will increase them.In an ideal situation yes there would be none but unfortunately many have made that impossible. The fact that no guard or someone could take these multiple killers out before such devastation answers that if only the evil have them . .

'Rember Hungerford. Remember Dunblane. Next time we have a nutter loose with a gun lets hope you are the first person he meets

Both events occurred because of ILLEGAL gun ownership as they had not complied with gun laws in force ir the Police failed to enforce them

Hungerford occurred because the killer was friendly with local police who allowed him to have automatic weapons when he was unsuitable
Dunblane occurred because the police allowed him to retain his guns after they were warned he was not safe to own guns and he no longer had a valid reason for ownership as he was not a member of a gun club - they thought that it would be against his human rights to take away his gun license ! For a firearms license you must prove that you have a valid reason for gun ownership , eg target shooting or hunting.

Remember the uproar when, on the hand-guns bann introduced after the Dunblane affair, HRH Prince Phillip commented that "next they'll ban cricket bats as well"? Well, I for one agreed with his point since, in the wrong hands, many objects may be used as deadly weapons. It is not the object which may dangerous, but the person handling it.

It used to be said that no-one is beyond suspicion. What a ban says is that we are all under suspicion.

"It also helps to stop taking the gun homicide statistics from the peak of the 90s as a reference point when a certain racial element was busy executing each other."

Some England/Wales Statistics:

Number of Firearm related homicides in the UK in 2007 - 59
Number of serious injuries from firearms in 2007 - 507
Number of firearm related offences (including air guns) 18,489

Population 51,500,000 approx

Source - BCS

Some US Statistics

Number of Firearm related homicides in the US in 2007 - 10,086
Total number of homicides in the US in 2007 - 14,831

Population 303,000,000 approx

Source - FBI

Tell me how allowing a similar gun culture to the US would improve things here. and how owning guns savs lives.

Guy Writes:
"If he hasn't already, Mr Brant should acquaint himself with the consistent and deliberate targeting of Mr Martin's home by callous thieves, and the equally long history of no help from the 'Law.'

Of course, Mr Martin should have had better protection from the law. But, that doesn't not give him the right to take the law into his own hand and shoot people in the back as they are running away from his property. We do not have the death penalty in this country. And at no point, even when we did have it, was burglary a crime punishable by death. If Mr Martin did not have a gun in is house, Fred Barras would not be dead, and Mr Martin would not have served time for manslaughter.

I do not believe that Mr Martin having access to a firearm resulted in the best possible outcome.

“If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns”. It’s a trite little cliché, but like many cliches it has a foundation in truth. We seem to have a situation in the UK where we are not allowed to defend ourselves, but the police either cannot or will not defend us either. What can we do, under such a double-bind? This is an intolerable situation, which creates and extremely unpleasant atmosphere of fear, out of all proportion to the actual number of incidents, which, relative to the total population, are not very high.
It has certainly never happened to me, in spite of living in some fairly lively areas of our major cities over the years, but then although I am almost sixty, I am still reasonably fit, with broad shoulders, and I take great care not to look or act like a victim, while at the same time not coming out with that sort of challenging righteousness which causes people to blow their fuses and lash out.
If my family was menaced on the street, or if we were broken into at home, I would do my very best to inflict severe bodily harm or worse on the perpetrator. Then I would lie about it, without hesitation or a shred of conscience. I strongly suspect that in a very large number of the cases where good citizens have been arrested for defending themselves or their property against violent scum, in the heat of the moment, they said something like “Of course I belted him one, officer, did you see what he did?” Now “Of course I belted him one” is tantamount to a confession of assault, and in today’s tick-the-boxes quota-ridden police culture, it is a far easier way of making an arrest than trying to pin something on some dishonest little toe-rag who will lie as easily as breathing, and get all his little mates to back him up.
The closest I ever came was when I had to deal with a neighbour from hell, who was too big and too fit to take on. So I quite deliberately and unscrupulously contrived a situation where he acted in such a way, in front of witnesses, as to get arrested.
Does this mean that I am not a nice person? Quite possibly. Does it mean I have some of the instincts of a criminal? Almost certainly. But in a society where almost everything is regulated by the state, it is remarkably difficult to live with the instincts of an honest man, and live well, without being jerked about by some mean-minded rule-obsessed jobsworth. A judicious instinct for larceny acts as life’s lubricant, and enables one to slide through situations with minimum fuss.
To come back to guns, I would like to see them legalised. I would like to see anyone allowed to own a rifle, a shotgun, or a handgun for home defence. The only limit I would propose is that gun owners should have to take a test on safety and responsible use, just as car drivers have to take a driving test. Obviously, just as with cars, there would have to be penalties for irresponsible use. And also, just as with cars, there would be some deaths. But if we had a society where everyone was not only allowed, but also expected, to take responsibility for their own safety, and the protection of their property, we might have a large number of people with more mature attitudes. Words like “responsibility” and “consequences of one’s actions” might have some real meaning again. In the real world, no solution is perfect. We have to look for the lesser of the various evils.
What many people want is contradictory and impossible. They want a society which is both perfectly safe, and perfectly free. It isn’t possible, because freedom implies the freedom to do some things which are not safe. I think we have been losing sight of this for about the last thirty years or more. Today, to say some activity is unsafe is to almost automatically condemn it.
I grew up in an older version of the UK. I’m basically a gentle, bookish sort of person, but I also like playing with danger, purely for the satisfaction of knowing I can do so safely and well and responsibly. I owned an air rifle when I was young. It was one of my most treasured possessions. I never hurt anyone with it. Today I own a much more powerful one, which I use for target shooting. I have shot with target rifles and Lee-Enfields. I have spent a good deal of my life practising the sort of sports where the penalty for a bad mistake is a lot more substantial than a referee’s whistle. I can’t help feeling that the attitudes and lessons I have learned are far healthier than I would learn if I had been wrapped in cotton-wool.
In my boyhood, it was also accepted that we fought. But we learned that even rough-and-tumble had rules. You didn’t fight five-on-one, you didn’t hit someone when they were down, you didn’t pick on someone smaller than you, and you certainly didn’t use cutlery. Within these limits, things like bruises or a black eye were accepted as normal. But for such a code to exist, it had to be first accepted that we were going to fight. What we seem to have learned over the last thirty years is that if you prohibit young people from fighting at all, because it is “nasty”, they will fight anyway, and they will fight without rules or restraint.
Overall, we seem to have made some very bad decisions in the UK. I do part company with you on the idea of the “liberal state”, though. When I studied politics at university many years ago, we learned that “liberalism” was about the rights of the individual, often in opposition to the powers of the state. I think what we have emerging these days is something new, and the old terminology is not very useful in pinning it down. Socialism is off the agenda, conservatism has morphed out of recognition, what liberalism is has become a matter of argument; I think what is emerging is “Big-Statism”. That’s a clumsy term. Maybe you can think of a better one.
I also disagree with you about cannabis. I went to the same University as your brother. Studying there was an intense experience. Three years doing harder and more intense brain-work than I have ever done before or since, often for very long hours at a stretch; ( there were many, many, nights when I came reeling out of the library at ten at night after eleven or more solid hours, feeling my brain was on fire); getting deeply involved in radical politics for a spell; having my first real affair and discovering sex in all its power and wonder and beauty; taken all together, it was very like total overload. Allied to a fairly passionate temperament, it meant I was lucky to come away still fairly sane. In my first year, I discovered beer, as many students do, but later I moved on to Durban Poison, Lebanese Gold, Pakistani Black, Nepalese temple stick, Ketama kif, and others. It certainly did not “fry my brain”. I graduated with an extremely good degree. And the alternative, if I had not self-medicated myself with cannabis and been stoned for a good part of my second and third years, would have been medical tranquillisers and possibly taking my finals from a ward in the local mental hospital, as some of the brighter students did every year.
Cannabis is not harmless. There is no such thing as a harmless drug. But in my experience, it is far less harmful than alcohol. I have tried both. Alcohol kills about 22,000 people every year. It does immense amounts of indirect damage in accidents, sometimes fatal, in violent incidents, it floods NHS casualty units every weekend, it makes our city centres uninhabitable at night, it is implicated in a shocking amount of domestic abuse. To say this is all okay, because alcohol is a drug our culture has become habituated and adjusted to, is simply not true. Its damage is only exceeded by that caused by our other legal drug, tobacco, which kills well over a hundred thousand every year. Maybe, Mr Hitchens, you should spend some time working in an inner-city casualty unit on a rough weekend, or accompany the police on our weekend streets filled with fighting vomiting screaming drunks, or talk to the people who run women’s’ refuges.
Cannabis is yet another example of the fact that, given freedom, some people will always do some things which are not safe. Prohibition never works. The only thing it does, quite reliably, is to put supply and quality control in the hands of professional criminals, and assure some of the worst people in the world a huge guaranteed income-stream. As a policy, this lacks all good sense.
Nor do I buy the myth that cannabis today is very different from what it was when I was a youngster. Thirty times as strong? Hardly. Maybe three times as strong. So smoke one third as much! There may be something in the idea that its composition has changed, and the modern, selectively-bred, varieties, contain a higher proportion of harmful compounds and a lower proportion of the beneficial ones. Cannabis is a complex plant, with over thirty active ingredients. But if it had not been prohibited, the modern strains, designed for indoor growing under lights, would never have been developed, and we would still be smoking the natural plant. Here, as in so many other areas, freedom would have worked better. As well as being philosophically preferable, freedom usually works better too, on a purely practical, pragmatic, standard. And if a freedom is to be taken away, we have to ask, why, and who benefits from its removal. But that raises several very large questions, and this piece is much too long already.
You will almost certainly disagree with me on this and other points. But I hope you will agree that it is possible to maintain a difference of opinion with integrity and courtesy; two other things that seem to be going out of fashion.

The "ruling class" are complacent about crime, which is not surprising when you consider where people like Tony Blair grew up and where they live now. This, I believe, explains a lot about their policy of being soft on crime.

'Rember Hungerford. Remember Dunblane. Next time we have a nutter loose with a gun lets hope you are the first person he meets, Brian Butler West Midlands.'

Posted by: Brian Butler | 30 April 2009 at 11:12 PM

That one is easily answered - in all those cases only one person had the guns - similarly, Virginia Tech proudly declared itself a gun free zone not so long before it happened.

Before the 1960s these lone nutter massacres didn't happen. Similarly, the whole Manson evil would have been inconceivable merely 10 years before - I do suggest that people follow the implications of this and take the subject of Evil seriously - it is a tangible force, not a mere philosophical concept.

I think Peter Brant is way off mark. It matters not what is the Psychogical Profile of an intruder to my home. I will not wait for my wife or I to be injured before taking preventative action. Should I kill someone in that situation, so be it. The law should be on my side and not on the side of intruders no matter what the situation. Intruders are just that, intruding, and obviously not with benign intent. To expect anyone in that situation to take the time to "ascertain intent" is ludicrous.

Pete, given the fact that crime is MUCH higher than it was during the depression, when the country was far "less equal" and there was a great deal more hardship with very high unemployment and a much smaller welfare state, how can you continue to insist that we have a "much better method" for dealing with crime?

Crime victims are not usually amongst the rich, but are heavily concentrated amongst the "poor" and those barely scraping along. The concept of "personality traits they have no control over" for those who are simply bad, and not the product of bad upbringing is exactly what our host means by "infantalised" as the idea is that they aren't responsible for their actions, but have some "disorder" over which the "have no control" and so are not responsible, and therefore not at fault either.

If he hasn't already, Mr Brant should acquaint himself with the consistent and deliberate targeting of Mr Martin's home by callous thieves, and the equally long history of no help from the 'Law.' But in fact Tony Martin is always being used by 'liberals' as an example of a Bad Thing (see John McVicar, Richard Dawkins, Norfolk Al et al) The cliché about more concern for the Criminal then the Victim is a cliché for a reason - in fact is a defining trait of 'liberal' thought in the new Soviet.

Peter says:

‘That police force is now the arm of the liberal state - rather than enforcers of conservative law (which is why it is nowadays called a 'service') - and so has a much wider licence to use (liberal) violence than ordinary conservative citizens . . what concerns me is that members of the public in the same situation are judged so much more harshly if they make such mistakes. And, perhaps more important, how police shootings are widely accepted, though they are summary, often erroneous and inadequately investigated.’

This is an excellent illustration of how a Fabian (incremental) type of extremism becomes accepted in a soft-totalitarian State. It is the same with the sexualisation of children, endemic recreational drug use amongst the young and the cheapness of human life in all areas from casual murder to the ‘A’ word. The only thing I would bilk at here is that you are actually accepting the Marxist tactic of changing the meaning of words – in the same way that ‘Democracy’ is Marxoid code for the imposition of Socialism, the meaning of the word ‘liberal’ has been altered to make extreme Leftism (which is the Tweedledum of extreme Rightism) appear a moderate middle way [which is why I put the word in inverted commas in the first paragraph]

Great picture though – I think it would make an excellent choice for a caption competition, e g ‘In the run up to this Friday’s Oxford Union Debate, Peter prepares for his latest head to head with his brother Christopher’

By the way - does anybody know what happened with the Robin Page link?

Having lived my life in Los Angeles and experienced the Watts Riots, and ventured into the middle of the Rodney King Riots, as my son was stuck with a broken truck right in the middle of it, I'll keep my firearms, thank you. The US Army trained me to kill many ways, but honest citizens need have no fear of me. A weapon is no more than a useful tool such as a wrench or pliers. Determined people can make bombs from fertilizer and kerosene, and poison gas (see phosgene WW1) from pool chemicals. Guns don't kill, people do.

As an American, I am interested in how the US appears to others. I would like to thank you for a generally sympathetic view.

I think, however, that WWI losses may be a necessary condition for the difference in attitude, but they are not a sufficient condition.

I say this based on my knowledge of the US Civil War. If it was just the loss of the best of a generation, the US would have faced that same slide. Look at the casulties as a % of the population, and I think you will agree that the Civil War was in the same "ballpark".

I suspect that it was a combination of factors that led to the loss of confidence. In the case of the US, in a short time, a large number of immigrants arrived who lacked the shattering experience. That would have helped dilute the impact. However, only a few of those who fought for the Union became as bitter.

I suggest that this was due in part to the more episodic nature of the combat in the Civil War, but mostly due to the fact that WWI rapidly came to be perceived as a wasted effort that changed little, whereas the Civil War very effectively ended secession, and did free the slaves.

You may object that the freed slaves were second-class citizens. Do not judge the 1870s by the 1940s. Many of the "Jim Crow" laws came into being starting in the 1900s and some even as late as the Wilson Administration in the 1910s!

How refreshing to read praise of the UK from a journalist. Such is our political climate that I sometimes feel we are made to feel foolish or inferior if we do so.
Glad to hear you have no plans to go into exile. Leave that to the elder Hitchens.

By the way, a quick google search for "Children of the New Forest" provides a link to a site where it can be read in full.

There was a case where a call was put into the police of an assault in a house where the victim was terribly injured over a period of time - plenty of time for the police to have intervened. But the police failed to show up and the victim sued for negligence. The court ruling was that the police are not bound to defend you - but to attempt to arrest the criminal when they find him later.

The police are not mandated to protect you, and you are forbidden the means to do so yourself. Good luck and hope you are not brutalized.

"Never venture east of White Chapel without your pistol, Watson."
Good advice then and even better today.
Clearly the police have given up on providing protection for the law-abiding citizen. They only pull out the stops for a murder. Which is a little late for the victim. Criminals are daily becoming more vicious and ruthless. But the lifeless body of an assailant provides a wealth of evidence potentially leading to accomplices. So let’s level the playing field, shall we? Without the deterrent of the death penalty (which I oppose on the grounds of potential miscarriage of justice), authority must license the law-abiding citizen to carry a concealed weapon. After training and psychiatric evaluation, naturally. Mine’s a Glock 19. Gun control is about hitting your target.

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